A Sudden Engagement and The Sicilian’s Surprise Wife(19)

Again she experienced the same curious pang she had felt earlier. Why should she care? she asked herself. Why should she feel pain at his admission of love for Beverley?

She barely tasted the steak in its delicious cream sauce, toying with the meat, wondering what had happened to her normally keen appetite.

It was late afternoon before they started back, and instead of taking her home, Drew drove her to the farmhouse. It was the first time she had seen it in daylight. It looked every bit as attractive as she had imagined, but this time she was able to catch her breath in awe at the magnificent views it commanded over the gently rolling countryside.

There was a car parked in the courtyard, and Drew frowned when he saw it.

Kirsty knew who it belonged to the moment she stepped into the hall. She could smell her perfume and recognised the heavy cloying scent of Opium, drowning out her own delicate application of Madame Rochas.

‘Drew, darling—at last!’

‘Beverley!’

His voice was as expressionless as his face, but Beverley wasn’t quite as adept at hiding her feelings, and bitter resentment showed in her eyes for a second as she saw Kirsty.

‘Have I come at a bad time? Really, darling,’ she smiled with false sweetness, ‘I hadn’t realised you were quite so impetuous!’

Drew shrugged aside the acid comment, only drawling, ‘It’s only natural that I should want to be alone with my new fiancée,’ and Kirsty was sure it was by no mere accident that he caught up her hand, lifting it to his lips so that the light caught the diamond-studded gold ring.

However, it wasn’t the ring she was thinking of, as she felt the warmth of his breath against her skin, his lips seductively probing her palm as he uncurled her fingers.

‘Was it something important, Beverley?’ he asked without lifting his eyes from Kirsty’s face. ‘Because if not…’

The tinkling laugh sounded as brittle as shards of glass to Kirsty’s sensitive ears.

‘Darling, you’re hardly tactful,’ Beverley complained. ‘What I actually came here for was to return this.’

‘This’ was a key—the key she had used to unlock the door, Kirsty presumed, thus making it very plain that she had a perfect right to walk in and out of Drew’s house whenever she chose. ‘I shall hardly need it now,’ she added pointedly.

Drew pocketed it without a word, but Kirsty was aware that he looked oddly pale beneath his tan, and she sensed that he was inwardly far from being as calm as he appeared as he escorted Beverley to the door and coolly closed it after her.

‘She wanted me to know that she had a key to this house,’ was all Kirsty could think of to say in the silence that followed the roar of her car’s exhaust.

‘You realise that, do you? Then we’re making progress.’ Beneath the sardonic tone, Kirsty sensed that he was bitterly angry, although she couldn’t understand why. Surely the mere fact that Beverley had wanted her to know about the key proved that she was far from indifferent to him?

‘You wanted to talk to me about Hero,’ she reminded him hastily.

‘Did I?’ His mouth was wry. ‘Somehow it had gone out of my mind. We’ll talk about it another time, Kirsty,’ he told her heavily. ‘I’ve only got so much self-control, and I can’t guarantee there’s enough of it left to get us both unmaimed through even another hour together right now, so I’m going to take you home.’

He did so, in a silence that seemed thick with tension. What was he thinking about? Kirsty wondered, stealing a glance at his forbidding profile. Since they had returned from York he seemed to have changed; to have withdrawn into himself. Because Beverley had returned his key to him, no doubt, she thought tiredly. Her head ached, and she could hardly bear to glance at the glitter of gold and diamonds on her left hand. It seemed a sacrilege that such a beautiful thing should represent so hollow an alliance.

The Porsche came to a halt outside her bedsit. She tugged ineffectually at her seatbelt, shrinking when Drew pushed her hands away, cursing as he released it.

‘Oh, for God’s sake don’t look at me like that!’ he snapped harshly. ‘You’re supposed to be engaged to me, remember? Even timid virgins are allowed to look at their fiancés with something approaching desire—when you look at me it’s either with fear or loathing. You’re an actress, Kirsty,’ he reminded her goadingly, ‘and a good one, or so you tell me. Prove it to me now, and kiss me as though you were my fiancée!’

‘Why?’ she managed shakily. ‘We haven’t got an audience.’

‘Ever heard of rehearsals?’ Drew asked sardonically. ‘And God knows, you need the practice.’

This last taunt was too much. Too furious to think logically, Kirsty slid her hands upwards over his chest, lifting her eyes to meet his.

‘Good,’ he told her, ‘but not good enough. We’re engaged, remember? We’re already lovers, or so they think. And we’re alone. I’ve just given you my ring. You’re an actress, Kirsty, remember?’

And all at once she did. She wasn’t Kirsty Stannard any longer, but the girl Drew had just described, free to experience all those weak, melting sensations curling insidiously through her stomach, sending her pulse rate sky-high as she lifted her hands to Drew’s shoulders, caressing the smooth flesh-covered muscles, her lips trembling as she touched them to his throat, feeling the roughness of his jaw against her skin as his arms closed round her and his lips met hers in a kiss of sensual sweetness that swept aside all her preconceived ideas of what a kiss should be.

Certainly she had never, ever, experienced before this yielding tide of emotion; this need to press ever closer to Drew’s body, her own moulding itself instinctively to his hardness, her fears forgotten in the headiness of what she was experiencing.

It wasn’t until two boys cycled past the car, whistling appreciatively, that she came to, jerking herself out of Drew’s arms with a shocked protest and wrenching open the car door before he could speak.

Acting! That was what she was supposed to have been doing, but only she knew how precious little acting ability it had taken to respond so passionately to Drew’s touch.

The realisation came as she climbed the stairs to her room. She had fallen in love with Drew.

It ought to have been impossible, but somehow she had—against all the odds—managed it. She tried to convince herself that it wasn’t true, that she was suffering from some strange delusion, but the truth once admitted would not be banished.

In the gathering dusk she sat completely motionless staring out of the window, trying to come to terms with the enormity of what had happened. Now more than ever before it was imperative that she got out of this fictitious engagement before Drew discovered the truth. It would be like being flayed alive, she thought helplessly. She couldn’t endure it—no one could, not knowing all the time that he loved Beverley and was simply using her to punish Beverley and bring her to heel.

With almost feverish intensity she tried to formulate some sort of plan of escape.

The telephone rang. She picked up the receiver and heard Clive Richmond’s voice on the other end.

‘A few of us are getting together at my place to go over our parts. Do you fancy coming round? I’m providing the supper, visitors provide the booze. How about it?’

All at once it sounded just what Kirsty wanted—the same sort of uncomplicated, pleasant evening she had enjoyed so often at college.

‘I’ll be round in half an hour,’ she promised, her spirits suddenly lightening. For this evening, she would put Drew and her love for him out of her mind.

It took her just over half an hour to reach the address he had given her. She had been delayed by Mrs Cummings whom she had met in the hallway, and had explained briefly to her where she was going.

Clive opened the door to her ring. Behind him Kirsty could see into the room, smaller and untidier than her own and lacking its cheerful warmth.

‘Rafe and Cherry have just nipped down to the pub,’ he greeted her, ‘the others will be along shortly. Come on in.’

As far as Kirsty could see no attempts had been made to get any supper ready, and remembering her student days, she guessed that that task would fall to the girls when they all arrived.

Clive accepted the bottle of plonk she proffered and poured them both a glass.

‘Make yourself at home,’ he told her, gesturing to the lumpy settee taking up most of the room.

A dog-eared copy of the play had been tossed carelessly on to the floor, and Kirsty picked it up and started to read absently from it as Clive closed the curtains and turned off the main lights. With just the glow from the electric fire and the lamps behind them, the untidiness of the room looked less obvious. Clive put a tape in the cassette machine on the floor, and the sound of Dr Hook began to fill the room.

Kirsty listened appreciatively, making no objection when Clive joined her on the settee.

‘How come you get such a juicy part, when a man of my many and varied talents only gets Borachio?’ he demanded mock-indignantly.

Kirsty pretended to consider the matter, her head on one side, the dark richness of her curls flatteringly framed by the plum-coloured jumper she was wearing over her jeans. ‘You’re not pretty enough for Hero?’ she ventured at last.